Two recent USC studies examined workplace civility and mobile-phone use. The first was an open-ended survey of 204 employees at an East Coast beverage-distribution company, and the second was a separate nationwide survey of 350 professionals. Researchers observed workers’ mobile-phone use during both formal and informal meetings, in the office and off-site. They tracked actions such as taking calls, texting and emailing, browsing the Internet and leaving the meeting to take a call. The researchers then designed the nationwide survey based on their observations, asking participants how they felt about others’ mobile-phone activity during meetings.